E 668 
.T24 
Copy 1 



^ibnvvM at (^mpe^^. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



AN ADDRESS 



mmm of mm in ONTiftiy, 

AND OTHER LOYAL STATES, 



IN REGARD TO THE 



TREATMENT OF CHURCH-MEMBERS 



WHO HAVE BEEN ENGAGED IN THE REBELLION. 



BY JOHN TAFFE, M. D., 

Late Chaplain of the 11th Kentucky Cavalry 



CI:N"C1NXATT: 

H. S. BOSWOKTH, PRINT. 

1 8 G G . 



TO THE READER. 



The following pages were written, not with a 
view to destroy, but to save, if possible, by leading 
the guilty to repentance — to induce the Churches 
to take proper action in the premises ; and to 
contribute somewhat to the diffusion of a healthy 
loyal sentiment throughout the country. 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



ADDRESS 



What should the Churches of Christ, in Kentucky 
and other loyal States, do tvith their returned members, 
ivho have been in the armies and councils of the 
Southern Confederacy or elsewhere— aiding and abet- 
ting in the effort to overthrow the Government of the 
United States and dismember the Republic ? 

Let no one take counsel of passion or prejudice 
in the decision of this question. These are unsafe 
counsellors. The ears of passion are too dull to 
hear the voice of reason and of truth, amid the noisy 
din and senseless clamor, with which she is ever sur- 
rounded; and the eyes of prejudice too feeble to see 
the truth through the thick vail that ever covers her 
face. 

Let these both alike, then, be excluded from the 
forum, the jury box and the judicial bench, and let 
reason, in the clear light of the word of God, and of 
the embodied wisdom and judgment of mankind, 
decide the question. Let no considerations but the 
interests of Zion, the good of those involved in the 
question, the good of the churches and our common 
country, be mixed up in the decision of this momen- 
tous question. Let us remember that the eyes of 
the allwise and benificent Ruler of the universe are 
(5) 



6 ADDRESS. 

upon US — penetrating the deep recesses of our hearts 
and all the secret springs of our conduct, and that 
to Him T\'e must give an account on the great day of 
retribution. 

What are the divine injunctions bearing upon this 
subject, as they came from the lips of the Great 
Messiah, and from the pens of His inspired apostles? 
When the chief priests and scribes, to tempt the 
Messiah, asked him if it were lawful to pay tribute 
to Csesar, He called for a penny: "Whose image 
and superscription hath it?" saith He. They an- 
swer, "Cesar's." And He said to them, ''''render 
therefore unto Ccesar the things that are Ccesar^s, and 
unto God the things which are God^s^ — Luke xx: 
19-20. 

Here Jesus enjoins upon the Jews not only the 
payment of tribute to Caesar, but the faithful discharge 
of every duty which they owed to Caesar and to God. 
He enjoins upon them loyalty in its highest and most 
comprehensive sense — making their obligation to 
obey the laws and edicts of Caesar absolute and im- 
perative, save and except (by implication), in those 
cases in which the commands of Caesar might be in 
contravention to the laws of God ; in which cases it 
was their duty to obey God rather than man, and to 
take the consequences ; but in no instance does He 
license them to raise their arms to resist or to strike 
down the government of Csesar. 

Judea had been conquered by the Roman arms. 



ADDRESS. 7 

and had become a Roman province. Caesar was only 
another name for the Roman emperor who then 
swayed a scepter over the civilized world. His juris- 
diction over the Jews had been acquired by conquest, 
and yet Jesus enjoins obedience to his authority in 
the clearest and most emphatic language. Obedience, 
then, to Csesar was obedience to God (save and ex- 
cept in those cases in which the laws of Caesar might 
be in derogation of the Divine law), and to resist the 
authority of Caesar was to resist the authority of 
God himself — for He has ordained political govern- 
ments, and clothed them with the high sanction of His 
authority. Jesus, therefore, in His answer to the 
chief priests and scribes, only enjoins upon them 
duties which had been always binding upon them from 
the very relation which they sustained to Caesar and 
to God. To the one as the ruler of the Roman empire, 
and to the other as the great ruler of the universe. 

If, then, the obligation of the Jew to submit to the 
government of Cresar was thus imperative, though 
his authority had been acquired by conquest over the 
chosen people of God, how much stronger is the ob- 
ligation of Christians to submit to the government 
of the United States, instituted by the American 
people themselves, for the preservation of the great 
heritage of freedom for themselves and posterity, in 
all time to come! and how dreadful the sin committed 
by them against God and the American people, in 
raising their arms and aiding and abetting in the 



8 ADDRESS. 

effort that has been made to strike it down ! I say 
Christians, because the churches have jurisdiction 
only over their own members — those without will be 
judged by the civil and military tribunals of the 
country. 

Political governments are organizations ordained 
of God for the punishment of evil-doers and for the 
praise of them that do well, and are to be faithfully 
and religiously obeyed as such. And no one can 
have any reasonable apology for raising his arm to 
strike them down, unless they fail of these great ends. 
Then, and then only, may they be abated as public 
nuisances. But in a representative democracy, like 
that of the United States, w^ith a written constitution, 
which makes provision for any change or amendment, 
which experience or advancing civilization may re- 
quire, the better to adapt it to the great ends of free 
government; and where the rulers are elected for 
short terms b}^ the people, and then returned to their 
constituents, to give an account of their stewardship, 
I can not conceive of any defect in the constitution 
that could not be better remedied in a constitutional 
way; nor of any wrong or oppression by the tempo- 
rary rulers, that could not be better redressed by an 
appeal to the people through the ballot-box than by 
an appeal to arms. An insurrection in such a case 
is attempted suicide — is an insurrection of the peo- 
ple against themselves — a rebellion of the minority 
against the majority, in utter disregard of the great 



ADDRESS. ' 9 

principle, "which must from inexorable necessity, 
control all free governments, namely, that the ma- 
jority shall rule; and when they shall have declared 
their will in a legal and constitutional way, that the 
minority shall submit to their sovereign decree. But 
in case of a rebellion of the minority against the 
majority, should they succeed in such a strange and 
hopeless enterprise, is there any probability, or even 
possibility that they could institute a new form of 
government that would better secure the rights of 
the people, than the happy form of government under 
wdiich we live, with a provision in its organic law, 
for any amendment in a peaceable and constitutional 
way, which the American people may deem necessary 
in the great charter of their freedom? Every right- 
minded man must answer this question with a broad 
and emphatic NO ! 

The teaching of the Apostle Peter upon the great 
subject of submission to political rulers, is equally 
clear and explicit : " Submit yourselves,'' says he to 
his Christian brethren, " to every ordinance of man 
for the Lorofs sake, luhetJier to the king as supreme 
{ruler), or unto governors as unto them, who are sent 
\y him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the 
praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, 
that with well-doirig you might put to silence the igno- 
rance of foolish men. As free aiid 7iot using your 
liberty for a cloak of maliciousness; but as the servants 
of God. Honor allynen. Love the brotherhood ; fear 



10 ADDRESS. 

God; honor the kingj' (1st Peter, ii, 13-17.) How 
could submission to kings, and governors, and politi- 
cal rulers, be more clearly and explicitly enjoined. 
The Apostle Peter and his Christian brethren were 
then living under the authority of the Roman empire, 
and these injunctions of Peter apply to political 
rulers in general, and to those of the Roman empire 
in particular. And if such was the obligation rest- 
ing upon Christians, to submit to the authorities of 
the Roman government, often stained with crime, 
and with the most cruel and relentless persecution 
of Christians, with what additional weight does the 
obligation rest upon Christians to submit to the be- 
nign government of the United States, which had 
never been felt as a burden, and had only been felt 
in the benefits and blessings it conferred? It had 
never wronged the States that raised their arms to 
strike it down, unless, indeed, it was in indulging 
their whims and in gratifying their unreasonable de- 
mands, as a too-fond mother sometimes does those of 
her spoiled and petted children. The wrong, if any, 
was not in withholding favors, but was in bestowing 
too many. 

Paul is equally definite in teaching his Christian 
brethren the duty of submission to their political 
rulers. To Titus he says, (iii, 1). " Put them in 
mind to he subject to principalities and powers, to obey 
magistrates^' etc. The Jewish Christians had become 
very restive under the Roman yoke ; many of them 



ADDRESS. 11 

thought it incompatible with the dignity of a Jew and 
a Christian to be subject to the authority of a heathen 
magistrate. Hence the injunction of Paul to Titus. 
He would have him to correct this error among the 
Jewish Christians, and to enjoin upon all the Christian 
brethren submission to the authority of their political 
rulers, though that authority might, in the providence 
of God, be vested in the hands of a heathen magis- 
trate. 

The Roman government, with all its sins upon its 
head, was one of the best of ancient times, and how 
long and dark the dreadful night that followed, when 
the sun of that empire set to rise no more ! 

Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, treats this sub- 
ject more in extenso, and in terms yet more em- 
phatic. He says : " Let every soul he subject to the 
higher poivers. For there is no potver but of God. 
The poivers that be are ordained of God. Who- 
ever therefore resisteth the poiver, resisteth the or- 
dinance of God^ and they that resist shall receive to 
themselves dainnation. For rulers are not a terror to 
good tvo7'ks, hut to the evil. Wilt thou then not be 
afraid of the poiuer? Do that tvhich is good, and 
thou shall have praise of the same — for he is the min- 
ister of God to thee for good. Bid if thou do that 
which is evil be afraid ; for he beareth not the sivord 
in vain ; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to 
execute ivrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore 
you must needs he suhjectj not only for ivrath, hut also 



12 ADDRESS. 

for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute 
also ; for they are God's ministers — attending contin- 
ually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all 
their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to 
whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom 
honor. Owe no man any thing, but to love one an- 
other^' (that is, discharge all your obligations), "/or 
he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.'' (Rom. 
xiii, 1-8. 

Here the apostle enjoins upon his Christian breth- 
ren submission to the powers that be, in the clear- 
est and most emphatic language ; and launches 
against all who resist the power the most dreadful 
denunciation. JSFo sophistry can evade the force of 
the injunction, or turn the edge of the terrible denun- 
ciation. .Both the injunction and denunciation come 
clothed with the awful sanction of Divine authority, 
and sound like an echo from Sinai's awful summit. 
Whoever, therefore (be he Jew or Christian or 
heathen, whoever he may be), that resisteth the 
power, resisteth the ordinance of God ; and they 
that resist, shall receive to themselves damna- 
TION ; because they not only resist the political 
power, but in so doing, they resist also the ordinance 
of God — defy alike the power of God and man, and 
therefore shall receive to themselves damnation. 

The term powers that be, here applies to all po- 
litical powers generally ; but more especially to the 
powers of the Roman empire, under whose jurisdic- 



ADDRESS. 13 

tion the apostle and his Christian brethren were liv- 
ing. These powers are organizations, clothed with 
the dread sanction of Divine authority, for the pim- 
ishment of evil doers^ and for the praise of them thai 
do loell; and are to be submitted to as a high and 
sacred religious duty, due alike to the political power, 
and to God himself; for He ordained and established 
the power for the protectioyi and security of human 
7'ights. 
' If then submission even to the Roman power, 
often stained with the blood of the martyred heroes 
of the Church, was a sacred religious duty ; and re- 
sistance to that power was resistance to the ordi- 
nance of God; and damnation was denounced against 
those who resisted the power, by an inspired apostle 
who wrote as the Divine Spirit directed his pen; 
where shall toe find language to express iviih sufficient 
emphasis the obligation of Christians^ and of all citi- 
zens, to submit to the government of the United States, 
which stands out the wonder and admiration of the 
world, as the best and most benign government ever 
devised by the wisdom of man? And where shall 
ive find fitting terms to decla^'e the deep damnation 
due to' those who have not only resisted this benign 
government, but have raised their traitorous arms to 
strike it down, and in the mad eifort have destroyed 
the lives of half a million of men — have deluged the 
country in blood — filled the land with widows and 
orphans, with the maimed, diseased, and dying — the 



14 ADDRESS. 

asylums with lunatics, the poorhouses with paupers, 
and burdened all the winds under heaven with the 
^sighs and groans and lamentations of bereaved 
widows, and orphans, and fathers, and mothers, and 
brothers, and sisters, who refuse to be comforted 
because their loved ones are no more ? They sleep 
in unknown graves beneath a southern sky. They 
went down in the shock and tempest of battle, or 
died in the dreadful prison-pens of the South — ren- 
dering up their lives to save the republic from dis- 
ruption, and to perpetuate the great heritage of 
American freedom, which these misguided church- 
members and their confederates in crime sought to 
destroy. And, 0, how many widows and orphans, 
in poverty and in tears, wait and watch for husbands 
and fathers who shall never come again, because 
they died by the hands of these church-members, 
and sleep their last sleep in unknown graves ! 

If a true history of this rebellion, with all its at- 
tendant circumstances of atrocity, shall ever be writ- 
ten, it will stand out on the page of history as the 
blackest of all the crimes in the dark and dreadful 
catalogue of human guilt. And yet many, who have 
been engaged in this dreadful work, come back from 
the slaughter of their countrymen, with garments all 
dripping with the blood of the heroic defenders of 
our nationality, and of our heritage of freedom, to 
resume their places in the churches, as if they had 
only been absent on excursions of ordinary business 



ADDRESS. 15 

or pleasure. And the churches, either from sym- 
pathy with their treason, or for the sake of peace, 
seem disposed to receive them without repentance, 
without admonition, and without reproof; forgetting 
that treason is rebellion against God, and that the 
wisdom which comes from above is first pure and 
then peaceable; and that they are required to put 
away from among them every wicked person, and to 
withdraw from every one called a brother Avho walks 
disorderly. We here drop the Bible aspect of the 
subject, with a view of considering the offense in a 
civil and political point of light, and then of group- 
ing both views together. 

The Constitution of the United States declares that 
" treason against the U7iited States shall consist only 
in levying war against them, or in adhering to their 
enemies — giving them aid and cornfoii.'' It also 
clothes Congress with power to declare the punish- 
ment of treason. This Congress has done, declar- 
ing, besides other penalties, that the offender shall 
be hanged by the neck until he is dead. 

" In England," until a very recent date, " the 
punishment of treason was most terrible and appal- 
ling : 1. That the offender be drawn to the gallows, 
and not be carried or walk, though (usually by con- 
nivance, at length ripened by humanity into law), a 
sledge or hurdle was allowed to preserve the offender 
from the extreme torment of being dragged on the 
ground or pavement; 2. That he be hanged by the 



16 ADDRESS. 

neck and then cut clown alive; 3. That his entrails 
be taken out, and burned while he is yet alive; 4. 
That his head be cut off; 5. That his body be divided 
into four parts ; 6. That his head and quarters be 
at the king's disposal." (" Though the king might 
dispense with all these items of punishment save the 
hanging.") Such was the dreadful punishment pre- 
scribed by the law of England for treason. And 
w^hy this terrible punishment, so shocking to the 
sensibilities of modern civilization ? It was because 
in the judgment of England, as well as in the com- 
mon judgment of mankind, embodied in the solemn 
form of law, by all nations ancient and modern, 
treason is the highest crime which man (considered 
as a member of society) can possibly commit. For 
it strikes at the very existence of all social order, 
and imperils the lives, the liberty, and the property 
of the entire community; and is in itself an aggre- 
gation of all crime — involving robbery, arson, mur- 
der, and almost every other crime in the calendar 
of human guilt. Our ancestors, therefore, in some 
instances, punished with these circumstances of ex- 
treme torture a crime that upheaves, as with the 
throes of an earthquake, the very foundations of 
society, and opens a bottomless fiery abyss, in which 
millions may be ingulfed. This barbarous punish- 
ment has happily passed away with the iron age in 
which it originated, and the abrogated law prescrib- 
ing it only remains on the records of the dead past 



ADDRESS. 



17 



as a monument of the horror with which our ances- 
tors viewed a crime fraught with such incalculable 
woes. 

The treason of Kentucky rebels is of the deepest 
and most atrocious die, because not only committed 
against the United States, the mildest and best gov- 
ernment in the world, but committed also against 
their own State of Kentucky (if indeed treason can 
.be committed against a state). Their crime, there- 
fore, stands forth in all its naked deformity, without 
any plea, not even the miserable heresy of state 
rights, to mitigate its dreadful atrocity. The same 
is true of the rebels of other loyal states. They 
are justly regarded by the President of the United 
States as more guilty than those of the disloyal 
states ; and are, therefore, excepted from his am- 
nesty proclamation. And shall these guilty men, 
with damnation denounced against them by the law 
of God, and confiscation, disfranchisement, and death 
denounced against them by the laws of their coun- 
try, be permitted to come back — take their seats in 
the congregations of which they had been members, 
and enjoy again all the privileges of membership, 
without repentance and without reproof? The 
churches that suffer these things become partakers 
of these men's sins and render their damnation sure. 
For as certain as a righteous God rules over the 
universe, and as certain as he has denounced dam- 
nation against those who resist the powers that be, 
2 



18 ADDRESS 

just SO certain, does this terrible denunciation rest 
with more than ordinary weight and solemnity upon 
these guilty men ; and also that other denunciation 
that " no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.'' 
For they are murderers in the common judgment of 
mankind, embodied in the forni of law by every civil- 
ized nation under heaven. For by the laws of the 
civilized world, where a number of persons combine 
to destroy the life of another, and all are on the 
ground, aiding and abetting in the act, or stationed 
sufficiently near to afford aid and assistance if neces- 
sary, all are principals in the murder. Those that 
strike the mortal blows, are principals in the first 
degree, and the others are principals in the second 
degree. All are held equally guilty of murder and 
punishable with death. And in treason there are 
no accessories, all are principals. These men, 
therefore, are not only traitors, but murderers, 
though perhaps some of them might not with their 
own hands have actually killed any one, yet they 
were on the ground making the effort to kill, and 
aiding and abetting those who did actually kill by 
thousands and hundreds of thousands our patriotic 
soldiers, who had gathered around the life of our 
nation to save it from destruction by armed traitors. 
Will the churches, then, admonish these men of 
the dreadful sins they have committed, and endeavor 
to lead them to true repentance and to a throne of 
grace, that they may obtain mercy and forgiveness — 



ADDRESS. 19 

remembering that he who converts a sinner from the 
error of his way, shall save a soul from death and 
hide a multitude of sins? Great as are the sins 
these brethren have committed, I do not regard 
their cases as hopeless ; but their repentance must 
be deep and tliorougli if they would obtain forgive- 
ness from a righteous and merciful God. They 
must heartily forsake and repudiate the sin — do 
works meet for repentance by making amends, as 
far as possible, for the wrongs they have done; and 
must then seek forgiveness from God and also from 
the churches of which they are members, and then 
according to the law of the Lord, upon public admo- 
nition, they may be restored to church fellowship. 
For those who sin are to be rebuked before all, that 
others also may fear (1 Tim. v, 20). And those 
who oppose any church action in the cases of these 
misguided brethren are (unwittingly perhaps) the 
greatest enemies to their spiritual and everlasting 
interest. 

But brethren say, " 0, these brethren are just as 
good as we are !" Brethren may say this of them- 
selves, because they probably know themselves bet- 
ter than I do ; but with all my imperfections upon 
my head, in the name of all that is true and of good 
report among men, I protest against being included 
in any such category. This sweeping remark levels 
all distinction between loyalty and disloyalty; be- 
tween righteousness and iniquity ; between obe- 



20 ADDRESS. 

(lience to God and the powers that be, and treason 
against all government both human and divine. 
What strange judicial blindness has fallen upon the 
moral vision of men as they stand amid the moral 
and physical desolation that has been wrought by 
the roaring, raging tempest of treason in its wide 
and dreadful sweep 1 Like men lost and bewildered, 
they have utterly lost their moral bearings, and in 
their moral dementia they call evil good and good 
evil_^ut darkness for light and light for darkness, 
and thus incur the woe of the prophet. Who shall 
anoint these blind eyes that they may see? or un- 
stop these deaf ears that they may hear? Who 
shall clothe the dry bones of this desolate valley 
with flesh, and breathe into the renewed forms the 
breath of life, that they may live again ? Who shall 
be able for these things? Is there no hope for 
spiritual Israel ? 

Another brother says, "These brethren are just 
as conscientious as we are, and therefore we ought 
to receive them without any mention of the past." 
I do not know whether these men are so conscien- 
tious or not. I can not penetrate the deep of the 
human heart, and pronounce upon the consciences 
of rebels ; and I do not exactly see how any one 
can do it that has not traveled that road as well as 
the way of loyalty; and even then that would only 
be the experience of one person, and would by no 
means prove that such was the experience of all 



ADDRESS. 21 

rebels. I doubt whether any sane mind can be so 
perverted as to come to such a conclusion as this. 
Still some persons are given over to strong delu- 
sions that they may believe a lie and be damned, 
because they receive not the love of the truth. The 
conscience may become strangely perverted and 
estranged from the way of righteousness. AVhat is 
properly called conscience is only a moral feeling, 
and like all the other feelings of the human heart, 
is blind. It follows the decisions of the understand- 
ing upon moral questions as inseparably as a shadow 
follows a substance in the sunshine ; so that if the 
understanding errs in its decisions, which are mere 
intellectual processes, conscience errs with it ; if the 
understanding stumbles and falls into the ditch, con- 
science falls in after it. If the understanding or 
intellect, then, has been trained to call evil good 
and good evil, treason loyalty and loyalty treason ; 
to call rebels patriots and patriots rebels (as was 
done in the South to work up and perpetuate the 
rebellion), and therefore errs in its decisions, con- 
science errs with it. So true is this that Jesus told 
his disciples that " the time would come, when those 
who put them to death would think they did God 
service." But did He say to his disciples, they are 
therefore just as conscientious and as good as you 
are? No verily, such confounding of good and evil, 
of righteousness and iniquity had been utterly fatal 



22 ADDREvSS. 

to His Divine pretensions. (He taught if the blind 
lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch.) 

Paul was one of those misguided men. He de- 
clares that he had lived in all good canscience from 
his forefathers. Even when dabbling his hands in 
the blood of the saints for doing the very things 
which the Messiah had commanded them to do, he 
was acting in all good conscience. But was he there- 
fore innocent and as good as they? Was this his 
view after his mind had been enlightened by the 
Word of God? No! looking back afterward on this 
career of blood, he most feelingly and in deepest self- 
abasement upbraids himself as the chief of sinners. 
And in all his after life, with a broken and contrite 
heart, and with a burning zeal always at a white 
heat, amid hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, 
obloquy and disgrace, stripes and imprisonment — 
amid perils by land and by sea, among heathen and 
among false brethren, with a restless energy which 
knew no languor or abatement, he labored by night 
and by day to save others from the dreadful gulf of 
ruin from which he had been rescued by the mercy 
of God, and to make some amends for the great sins 
he had committed — presenting in his wonderful 
labors of love a spectacle of moral grandeur that has 
no parallel in the world's history. 0, then, teach 
these returning rebels that only in deep contrition 
and a hearty repudiation of their sins, and earnest 
prayer to God for mercy, can they expect forgive- 



ADDRESS. 23 

ness from God for the great sins they have com- 
mitted, and that only on these conditions can they 
again he received back into the churches. Any 
other course woukl be disloyalty to the King of 
kings. And any other course must utterly destroy 
the saving power of the churches. How can the 
churches rebuke any minor sins, when the crowning 
sin of the age, nag, of the ages, goes unrebuked? 
Church-members will spurn and spit upon your 
authority, if you attempt to lay the hand of disci- 
pline upon them for dancing, gambling, lying, 
defrauding, drunkenness, or any of the common sins 
of the age, when the crowning sin of the ages — com- 
prehending within its terrible sweep the sum of all 
sin, goes utterly unrebuked. How would a church 
appear after deciding that this great sin in the per- 
son of one of its members should go unreproved, 
and yet at the very same meeting should take up a 
young sister, and exclude her for dancing, or a 
young brother, and exclude him for cheating his 
neighbor in a horse-swop ; or an old brother, and 
exclude him for getting drunk? Would not this 
look like keeping the church pure ? It would look 
very much like straining out a gnat and swallowing 
a camel. That church would then be prepared for 
the coming of the Lord ! 

We will suppose that the above case occurs in a 
church, where members are tried in committee of the 
whole, and that after the church has decided that 



24 ADDRESS. 

the returned rebel lias committed no offense deserv- 
ing reproof, he holds up his hand for the exclusion 
of the sister or brother in the supposed case. 
Would not this look like Satan reproving sin ? 0, 
shame on such trifling with divine authority! Save, 
save, my Christian brethren of every denomina- 
tion, the Church of Christ from such defilement and 
ruin ; and save, if possible, these misguided brethren 
from the terrible judgments of God that await them, 
unless they repent, do works meet for repentance, 
and sue for mercy at a throne of grace, and when 
you think that God has received the returning peni- 
tent then you may receive him and restore him to 
the privileges of the church ; otherwise it is your 
duty to withdraw from him and from all others 
called brethren who walk disorderly. 

But, again, brethren w^ould have no church action 
in the cases of these brethren, because they were 
honest in what they did, and thought they were do- 
ing right. Why, some of those concerned in the 
dreadful tragedies in Washington, if any credit is to 
be given to their statements, thought that they were 
doing right! And this was the plea urged in de- 
fense of Payne. His counsel asked him wdiy he 
attempted to assassinate Mr. Seward, and he replied 
because he thouo;ht it was right. His counsel en- 
deavored to show that he was a regularly educated 
assassin, and having graduated in this profession, 
when he found a case suited to his taste, he ad- 



ADDRESS. 25 

dressed himself to the accomplishment of the work ; 
and his counsel, with the audacity of a spirit fresh 
from pandemonium, urged his acquittal on that 
ground, because it was simply in the line of the pro- 
fession to which the man had been educated, and of 
which he was a regular graduate ! And it is very 
possible, that these good, conscientious brethren, 
who have returned from the innocent work of 
slaughtering their fellow-citizens, because they stood 
in the way of the destruction of the life of the na- 
tion, are pretty much of the same way of thinking ! 
Shall the murderer, when the hand of justice is 
laid upon him, turn and raise his blood-red hands 
and reeking dagger toward heaven, and declare he 
is innocent, because he is conscientious in what he 
has done, and thought he was doing right, and there- 
fore justice has no claim upon him ? Shall the 
hand of justice be palsied by such a plea? and shall 
he release the criminal from his grasp ? This is the 
strange doctrine that is now brought to our ears. 
Then close the sanctuaries of religion and the halls 
of justice, for the religion of our fathers and the 
genius of justice that presided over the tribunals of 
our country have taken their flight from earth, the 
landmarks of virtue are efi'aced from the records of 
time, and all distinctions between virtue and vice, 
righteousness and iniquity are swept away by the 
rushing, raging flood of evil that bears away on its 
resistless tide the hopes and fortunes of men ! Has 
3 



26 



ADDRESS. 



pandemonium been established on earth? and has 
virtue fled from the abodes of men ? Stay, stay, 
my brethren, this dreadful springtide of evil, that 
threatens ruin alike to both church and state, and 
let the law of the Lord be enforced though it sift 
the church as wheat. 

But, says another good brother, "We don't notice 
the cases of these brethren, because we do n't suifer 
politics to be brought into the church." Pray, my 
good brother, what do you mean by politics? 
Many use this term very flippantly, who know not 
what they mean nor whereof they affirm. The term 
politics, according to Mr. Webster, in its largest and 
most comprehensive sense, comprehends the science 
of government both human and Divine. And surely 
this good brother would not have all this excluded 
from the church. But what is frequently meant by 
politics is the partisan squabbles about the policy of 
the state or nation in regard to political economy, 
or the contests between the outs and the ins for the 
loaves and fishes of office. Surely these matters 
ought to be kept out of the church. But are ques- 
tions of overt acts of treason, that have baptized the 
country in blood and filled the whole heavens with 
wailings and lamentations for husbands and fathers, 
sons and brothers, slaughtered by hundreds of thou- 
sands, to be summarily dismissed from the conside- 
ration of the churches by the simple announcement, 
'' 0, we do n't sufi'er politics to come into our 



ADDRESS. 27 

church!" May the Lord save the church from the 
sin of misnaming treason politics, and allowing the 
criminal, like other criminals, to escape under an 
alias, when the penalties of confiscation, disfran- 
chisement, and death are denounced against the of- 
fender bj the laws of the country, and damnation by 
the law of God. 

But it is further objected, that the President of 
the United States has pardoned most of the rebels, 
and surely the church ought to be as merciful as the 
state, and not pursue these men with vengeance, 
when the chief executive of the nation has pardoned 
them. 

But neither the one nor the other of these is the 
question before us. The great matter that I would 
urge upon the common brotherhood, is to save, if 
possible, these misguided brethren from the error of 
their way that God may forgive them. This would 
save many souls from death and cover multitudes of 
sins, and would save the church from the sin and 
guilt and shame of winking at the sins of these 
brethren, and perhaps of making their damnation 
sure. But the President's proclamation extends 
not to Kentucky rebels and those of other loyal 
states. They are expressly excepted from its mer- 
ciful provisions, as above stated, and doubtless for 
the reasons there adverted to. 

All the arguments that have been urged, to show 
the weighty and imperative obligations resting upon 



28 ADDRESS. 

Christians to submit to the benign government of 
the United States and to obey its injunctions, and 
the dreadful denunciations cited both from the law 
of God and the laws of our country against those 
who resist its authority, apply with all their force to 
all citizens (and to all sojourners in our country, 
who owe to our government temporary allegiance), 
whether they be Christians, skeptics, infidels, or 
heathens. 

But I am asked, what should be done with those 
church-members who have remained at home, but 
who have persuaded and seduced others to take up 
arms against their state and country ; or who have 
otherwise aided and abetted the rebellion, and per- 
haps guerrilla warfare against unarmed citizens-; 
and who perhaps have the guilt of perjury upon 
their souls in the oath they have taken, that they 
have never aided and abetted the rebellion ? 

I answer imeqaivocalli/^ if any of these facts can he 
proved against them, they should be, forthwith, sepa- 
rated from the churches of which they are members, 
and never again received until they shall have re- 
pented and heartily repudiated their sin, and done 
works meet for repentance ; both because the se- 
ducer is more guilty than the victim of seduction, 
and because he who secretly plots and works mis- 
chief in the dark is more dangerous than the open 
and avowed enemy, as the viper that strikes from 
his cover in the dark is more dangerous than the 



ADDRESS. 20 

more noble serpent that gives warning by tbe sound 
of his rattle before he strikes. And if any church 
refuse to take action in regard to any of these mis- 
guided men, all other churches should withdraw 
from such church all fellowship and co-operation . 

But what should be done with those brethren who 
"despise dominion and speak evil of dignities;" 
habitually speaking evil of the rulers of our country, 
weakening the authority of government, and encour- 
aging the spirit of lawlessness and rebellion that 
abounds throughout the land ? 

They should be promptly admonished, and if they 
persist in their course, they should be separated 
from their respective congregations. Though they 
may not have actually committed overt acts of trea- 
son, yet they have committed treason in their 
hearts — are exposed to the divine displeasure, and 
if they persist in their course they must perish in 
the gainsaying of Cora. They are making the re- 
turned rebel soldiers more disloyal than ever, and 
are sowing the seeds of dislo3^alty to all government 
both human and divine. 

Again; I am asked what should be done with 
those, called ministers of Christ, who have been aid- 
ing and abetting the rebellion, whether by word or 
deed, giving to it the weight of their influence ? 

My answer is : they should be excluded alike 
from the pulpit and the church. He who ministers 
in sacred things, should come into the sanctuary of 



30 ADDRESS. 

the Lord with clean hands, a pure heart, and with 
hallowed lips ; and not with treason upon his lips, 
rebellion in his heart, and with hands stained with 
innocent blood. The breath of such a one is poison, 
his contact is death. It is Satan in the robes of an 
angel of light, rebuking minor sins the more effec- 
tually to overthrow all authority both human and 
divine, and to lead men captive at his will. 

But it is objected that " our Revolutionary 
fathers were rebels, that they resisted the power of 
Great Britain, and if the divine law enjoining sub- 
mission to the powers that be, and denouncing dam- 
nation against those that resist the power, applies 
to the rebels who have waged war against the United 
States, it applies also to our Revolutionary fathers." 

But the cases are very dissimilar. There were 
minor questions at issue between the colonies and 
Great Britain ; the chief questions, however, at 
issue were taxation and representation, and the 
right of trial by a jury of the vicinage. Parlia- 
ment had taxed the colonies without their having 
any voice or representation in that body, and the 
British authorities had transported citizens of the 
colonies to England for trial for alleged offenses in 
America. Against these wrongs the colonies re- 
spectfully remonstrated — contending that these acts 
of the mother country were in violation of the 
British Constitution ; that taxation and representa- 
tion were inseparable, and that it was the birthright 



ADDRESS. 31 

of every subject of Great Britain to be tried by a 
jury of the neighborhood in which the offense with 
which he stood charged was alleged to have been 
committed; expressing their love and devotion to 
the mother country, and their wish to remain colo- 
nial dependents of Great Britain. 

The remonstrances of the colonies against these 
and other wrongs, and their protestations of love 
and devotion to the mother country were utterly 
disregarded by the British authorities. And after 
a long series of wrongs committed by the mother 
country against the colonies, the only tendency of 
which seemed to be to enslave a free people, she 
actually commenced hostilities against them ; and 
long after the war had been commenced, like dutiful 
and affectionate children, they still clung to the 
mother country, hoping that reason would return 
and that the mother they loved so well would yet do 
them justice. And it was not until the mother 
country had waged war against them for fourteen 
months and fifteen days, when all hope of reconcili- 
ation was gone, that the united colonies declared 
their independence, and took their equal and inde- 
pendent stand among the nations of the earth. 

But how stands the case with Southern rebels ? 
Without being able to allege a single wrong done 
them by the government of the United States, 
seven cotton states passed their ordinances of seces- 
sion, declaring their separation from the Union. 



32 ADDRESS. 

They, moreover, declared that they 2vanted no com- 
promise ; that give them a carte blanche and let them 
ivrite their own terms and they would not accept them; 
that they wanted no farther union with the North. 
And some of them said that they had been plotting 
the scheme of secession for thirty, and others said 
for forty, years. And while the government at 
Washington was waiting for a return of reason to 
the South, Fort Sumter was assailed and taken, 
Washington was threatened, and it was proclaimed 
that terms of peace would be dictated in Faneuil 
Hall in Boston ! 

Where, then, is the analogy between the case of 
our Revolutionary fathers and Southern rebels ? It 
is no where. And those who make the comparison 
dishonor our fathers. The rebels and their sympa- 
thizers will find a more fitting example in the revolt 
of Satan and his rebel hosts against the Divine 
government ! 

But whether our Revolutionary fathers were in- 
nocent or guilty of a violation of the law of God 
enjoining submission to the powers that be^ and de- 
nouncing damnation against those that resist the power, 
does any one suppose that the American Revolu- 
tion abrogated that law, and that the governments 
of this world, ordained by God for the protection 
and security of human rights, have never been un- 
der the Divine protection since the Revolutionary 
War? If so, that was a most unfortunate revolu- 



ADDRESS. 



33 



tion, and our fathers did very wrong to repeal that 
law, and leave the suffering nations without any 
Divine protection ! But if that law is not a dead 
letter, hut is in full force and vigor, as tvhen first pro- 
mulgated, as I most certainly believe, then it applies, 
in all its dreadful import, to the rebels who have waged 
war against the United States — the most wicked and 
causeless rebellion known to the annals of time. If it 
applies not to these guilty men, to whom can it have 
any possible ap)plication^^ Let those who make the 
objection anstoer this question. 

But one of our scribes objects, ''that the apostles 
resisted the powers that be, in that they continued 
to speak and teach in the name of Jesus after they 
had been commanded not to do so by a Jewish 
councill" 

But that in this there was no resistance, any one, 
who has any knowledge of the meaning of the term, 
ought to know. It was a simple disregard of an 
unauthorized command of a Jewish council — a com- 
mand not only in contravention of the high design 
of the Mosaic institution, but in direct violation of 
the will of the divine Author of that institution and 
of governments among men, and also in direct vio- 
lation of the terms of the Great Commission which 
the Messiah had given to those holy men. And 
when the Lord of all speaks, hushed be the voice of 
the councils and rulers of this world, and let all the 
earth hear ! 



34 ADDRESS. 

The apostles went straight forward in discharge 
of the high trust committed to their hands, and un- 
resistingly suffered such wrongs as wicked rulers 
might inflict upon them. And to make their su- 
preme devotion to God and to the great work of 
saving a sin-ruined world, amid stripes and impris- 
onment, obloquy and disgrace, when they lifted not 
a finger against those who wronged them, an apology 
for treason, is an insult to the Majesty of heaven 
and to these godly men. 

But, again, it is objected that '' these brethren 
have given sufficient evidence of repentance, in that 
they have returned and resumed their places in 
their respective congregations." 

This objection confesses the guilt of these breth- 
ren, and seeks, by a false plea, to shield them from 
church-discipline. Had they been guilty of drunk- 
enness, or lying, or stealing, would their taking 
their seats in their respective congregations, and 
exercising the privileges of members, be regarded 
as evidence of repentance, and as satisfying the 
demands of the violated majesty of the divine law? 
It might be regarded as heaven- daring presumption, 
but no one could regard it as evidence of repent- 
ance and of divine acceptance. If so, Satan him- 
self ought long since to have been received into the 
church, for, when the sons of God came to appear 
before the Lord, Satan came also ! Unfortunately, 
if this plea is accepted by the church and by these 



ADDRESS. 35 

guilty men, in closing the door against church-dis- 
cipline, it closes the door also against repentance, 
and consequently against divine forgiveness, and 
consigns these unfortunate men to the dreadful 
doom denounced against them by the law of God. 

But I am told that " these men do not feel that tlicy 
have done any ivrongJ' Then tliey are given over 
that they may believe a lie that they may he damned, 
because they believe not the truths but have i^leasure 
in uni'ighteousness. Like David, they have greatly 
sinned, but like him, they feel not their guilt. 0, 
for a Nathan to show them their sins that they may 
repent and that God may forgive them ! 

But it is urged in bar of any church action in the 
cases of these brethren, that " large numbers of 
young men, in many neighborhoods, were pressing 
into the rebel armies, or otherwise aiding and abet- 
ting the rebellion, and that church members were 
carried away by the popular excitement, as by a 
flood, and swept into the rebellion T' 

Do numbers justify iniquity or sanctify treason 
against the government either of God or man ? Can 
numbers change the moral character of actions, and 
make evil good or good evil ? If so, the whole ante- 
deluvian world, instead of becoming guilty before 
God, ought from their numbers to have become 
innocent, and therefore should have been spared 
instead of being swept from the face of existence 
(except Noah and his family, faithful among the 



6b ADDRESS. 

faithless), by the mighty waters of the deluge. If 
the highest crime known to the laws of God and 
man, when committed by church members, is to be 
suffered to pass even without rebuke by the church 
on account of the numbers engaged in the sin, why 
not receive all the world into the church on account 
of their numbers, though stained with every imagin- 
able sin, because the vast majority are rebels against 
God? Surely, if the most flagrant sin is to be 
tolerated on account of the numbers engaged in it, 
minor sins, a fortiori, ought to be tolerated upon the 
same principle ; and thus would the Church of 
Christ soon become a synagogue of Satan ! I know 
a church in Kentucky where a young lady was 
separated from the church for dancing a little at a 
social party, but where red-handed rebel church- 
members, fresh from fields of slaughter, are received 
back into the church without the least admonition. 
If numbers are held by churches as sanctifying sin, 
what a melancholy exhibition does it present of the 
frailty of those who would be governed by the 
Bible ! The precept of the great Hebrew lawgiver, 
" Thou shall not follow a muUilude to do evil,^^ is for- 
gotten. Do not the churches that receive these 
guilty men without reproof become partakers of 
their sins, and involve themselves with them in one 
common ruin ? 

Why luere vast midiitudes of the Jewish nation cut 
off, and others plucked up and sold into slavery 



ADDRESS. 37 

among the nations for putting to death the Great 
Messiah f But few of the Jews were actually con- 
cerned in that judicial murder, and very few actually 
concerned in it were living at the time that awful 
punishment overtook that guilty nation. Why, 
then, did the nation suffer for the act of a few ? It 
was because the nation approved the act of the few^ 
ayid thereby assumed and incurred their guilt. Let 
the churches, therefore, beware how they receive 
into their bosom these guilty men, lest they thereby 
assume their guilt, and subject themselves to the 
same dreadful punishment denounced by the law of 
God against these rebels. 

But I am told that the terrible denunciation in 
Rom. xiii, 2, though apparently clothed with all the 
terrors of the power of Almighty God, is only de- 
claratory of the punishment, which the political 
power may inflict if its authority be resisted ! 

And is that all ? Have we here the anomaly of 
a Divine law without any Divine sanction or penal- 
ty — a Divine law with a merely human penalty ! 
And has Divine justice no demands upon the offend- 
ers, because the Divine law, in these cases, has only 
a human sanction ; and must these cases for the 
want of a Divine penalty, all be referred for final 
adjudication to the uncertain justice of mere human 
tribunals ! What a wide door this opens into hea- 
ven for the bloodiest wretches that ever afflicted our 
race ! Traitors then, may uproot the very founda- 



38 ADDRESS. 

tions of society, may resist the ordinance of God, 
may oppose and slay His ministers, who are waiting 
upon the public interests, may deluge the whole land 
in blood, and cover the face of society with a dark 
pall of nameless sorrow, and yet go for ever un- 
whipped of Divine justice ; because forsooth, the 
Divine law prohibiting these dreadful sins, by some 
strange oversight, has no Divine but only a human 
sanction ! — and if they have been guilty of the vio- 
lation of no other Divine law, they have an open 
door to heaven ; and if human justice should over- 
take them, and send them out of the world by a 
halter, it w^ould only hasten their entrance into the 
realms of endless bliss, though their hands and gar- 
ments are dripping with innocent blood ! Does any 
but a madman believe this ? Does any one suppose 
that these bloody handed traitors, who have brought 
upon the American people more than an Iliad of 
woes, can without thorough repentance and reform- 
ation of life, escape the damnation of hell. I say 
this in mercy, — desiring their repentance that they 
may be saved. Knowing the terrors of the Lord I 
warn them of their danger, and I would be unfaith- 
ful to my high trust as a Christian minister, if I did 
not do it. 

But I am asked: ^^ A7'e yoic a coercionist ? Bo you 
believe in coercion '? '' 

Who asks these questions? The highwayman; 
who has robbed a traveler of his watch, and sets 



ADDRESS. 39 

upon him to coerce him into a surrender of his 
pocket book! The traveler impelled by the in- 
stincts of self-preservation, defends himself against 
the murderous assault of the highwayman, and 
when the highwayman begins to sink beneath his 
sturdy and well directed blows, he cries out : " Are 
you a coercio7iist f Do you believe in coercion f JSoiv 
2vho is the coercionist here? It is the hightvayman, 
who had robbed the traveler of his watch — attempt- 
ed to coerce him into a surrender of his pocket 
book ; and was only prevented from succeeding in 
his eifort at coercion, by the superior prowess of the 
traveler. And he ought to be very thankful that he 
got off with his life, and escaped the penitentiary. 

But it is not the highwayman, who asks these 
questions ; but criminals infinitely more guilty than 
he. It is traitors of the most crimson die. He 
attempted the life of a single traveler, they at- 
tempted the life of the great Republic of America. 
As the life then of this great nation, is to the life 
of one man, so is the guilt of these rebels to the 
guilt of the highwayman. They had passed seces- 
sion ordinances, had seized upon the mint of the 
United States at New Orleans, and upon all the 
forts, arsenals, custom houses, arms, dock yards, 
etc., of the United States, Avithin their power, and 
held them in hostility to the United States. They 
had raised large armies, and had actually commenced 
war against the United States to coerce them into a 



40 ADDRESS. 

surrender of all the slave states, and as much of the 
territory of the United States as possible, that they 
might organize them into a separate and indepen- 
dent confederacy ; when the government and loyal 
people of the United States, impelled by the common 
instincts of self-preservation, accept the gage of 
battle thus forced upon them and defend their sacred 
rights and the life of the nation against the bloody 
assaults of these armed traitors, with a vigor and a 
prowess that cause the armed hosts of the rebellion 
to stagger and reel beneath their heavy and well 
directed blows, and that send their thinned and 
broken columns flying in dismay before the victori- 
ous American eagle; when defeat and disaster 
thicken upon them and fill them with terror and 
dismay, they lift up their bloody hands, and, as if 
with holy horror, exclaim : " Ar-e you coercionists F 
I}o you believe m coercion? " 

JVoiv ivJio are the coercionists in this case ? Every 
right minded man must anstver, the rebels are the 
coercionists. They sought to coerce the government 
and loyal people of the United States into an ac- 
quiescence in the dismemberment of the Republic. 
The loyal portion of the community fought purely 
in self-defense ; and as soon as the rebels desisted 
from their efforts to dismember the Republic, the 
war ceased. If the rebels failed in their efforts at 
coercion, it was only because they were over- 
matched by the loyal portion of the American peo- 



ADDRESS. 41 

pie, and beaten in the conflict which they themselves 
had commenced — for the mad purposes of coercion 
and dismemberment. But, says one: ^'Tou whipped 
us, and compelled us to submit to your Yankee rule ; 
and I call that coercion." Yes, when you forced 
us into the conflict, we intended to give you a sound 
thrashing — compel you to sul)mit to the government 
of the United States, and, if possible, to make de- 
cent citizens of you. 

But these rebels tell us all that they asked was to 
be let alone. A very modest request truly ! why 
all that any pirate, rogue or highAvayman asks, is to 
be let alone in his robbery, bloodshed and devasta- 
tion. And all these rebels modestly ask, is to be 
let alone in their diabolical work of plundering and 
dismembering the great American Republic ! I 
greatly marvel at this surpassing modesty ! And 
they think it very hard that they were compelled to 
desist from this mad enterprise — well, I suppose : 

JVb rogue ever felt the halter draiv, 
With good opinion of the laic. 

But these rebels ought to feel very thankful that 
their lives have been spared, and that they are gra- 
ciously permitted to live in a country, whose soil 
they have wantonly reddened with the blood of half 
a million of slaughtered countrymen. In penitence 
and deep humility may they seek forgiveness of God, 
of the churches of which any of them may be mem- 
bers, and of the American people against all of 
4 



42 ADDRESS. 

Avhom they have so greatly offended ; and may they 
thus find forgiveness and acceptance ; and may we 
all strive together for the glory of God, the good 
and happiness of each other, and the honor of the 
American name, that the sun of freedom may en- 
lighten all the nations of the earth, and that all kin- 
dreds, tribes and peoples may rejoice in its beams and 
in the beams of that better sun — the sun of right- 
eousness. 

But, again, it is objected that " the institution of 
slavery was menaced by the incoming administration 
of Mr. Lincoln ; that the South went to war to save 
the institution from being overthrown, and the fact 
that it has been overthrown shows that their appre- 
hensions were well founded. 

This is a palpable noii-sequitur. The Republican 
party expressly disavowed in their platform any 
purpose or authority to interfere with slavery where 
it existed, and simply declared it to be their purpose 
to oppose its farther extension ; and notwithstand- 
ing the Republican Congress of 1860 and 1861 had 
been elected to oppose the further extension of 
slavery, yet they passed laws for the organization 
of several new territories, and in each of those laws 
they not only did not prohibit slavery from going into 
the territory, but as a peace-offering to the South, 
expressly prohibited the territorial legislature from 
interfering w^ith the domestic institutions of the ter- 
ritory, having direct reference to the security of 



ADDRESS. 43 

slave property in the territories. And Mr. Lincoln, 
" one of the most upright of Chief-Magistrates," was 
very reluctant to interfere with slavery, and it was 
only when the life of the nation seemed to hang trem- 
bling in the balance, and the alternative arose whether 
the nation or slavery should perish, that Mr. Lincoln, 
with a somewhat hesitating and reluctant hand, struck 
the blow that sent the colossal evil, that had so long 
disturbed the public peace, reelhig down to the dust. 
And as a war-measure the right to do so was un- 
questionable. The war-power of the Ignited States 
involves the right and the duty of national preserva- 
tion, and overrides every barrier that stands in the 
wa.y of saving the nation from disruption or destruc- 
tion. Pending the adoption of the Constitution of 
the United States, it was objected that the war- 
power under the Constitution was unlimited, and, 
therefore, dangerous to the liberties of the people. 
To this the immortal Alexander Hamilton replied: 
^' The circumstances that endanger the safety of na- 
tions are infinite ; and for this reason no constitu- 
tional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power 
to which the care of it is committed. This power 
ought to be co-extensive with all possible combina- 
tions of such circumstances ; and ought to be under 
the direction of the same councils which are ap- 
pointed to preside over the common defense. 

" This is one of those truths which to a correct 
and unprejudiced mind carries its own evidence 



44 ADDRESS. 

along with it, and may be obscured, but can not be 
made plainer by argument or reasoning. It rests 
upon axioms as simple as they are universal — the 
means ought to be proportioned to the end; persons 
from whose agency the attainment of any end is ex- 
pected, ought to possess the means by which it is to 
be attained." 

And James Madison, called the father of the 
Constitution, upon the same subject says: ''With 
what color of propriety could the force necessary 
for defense be limited by those who can not limit 
the force of offense. . . . The means of secu- 
rity can only be regulated by the means and danger 
of attack. They will, in fact, be ever determined 
by these rules, and by no others. It is in vain to 
oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self- 
preservation. It is worse than in vain, because it 
plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpa- 
tions of power." 

Here, then, is a power granted by the American 
people themselves in their national Constitution — a 
power limited only by the national resources and 
the laws of civilized warfare. It follows, therefore, 
as a necessary corollary to the above axiomatic 
truths, that the government that is clothed Avith this 
tremendous power for the protection and defense of 
the nation against all enemies, both foreign and do- 
mestic, may slay such enemies in battle — may wrest 
from them their arms, their munitions of war, their 



ADDRESS. 45 

means of subsistence, or any other means which 
strengthen their hands or enable them to do mis- 
chief. The government may also, as an element of 
power, manumit the slaves of the nation, and may 
arm them to fight against the common enemy; and, 
as a means of weakening the enemy and of increas- 
ing their own strength, they may emancipate his 
slaves and arm them to fight against him. 

All these principles had been settled long before 
our late civil war, and are, indeed, coeval with wars 
among men. They were settled by the Revolution- 
ary war. Great Britain in that war issued a pro- 
clamation of emancipation, and the result was the 
emancipation of some thirty thousand slaves (I be- 
lieve) belonging to the colonies. And our govern- 
ment emancipated quite a number of slaves, who 
had fought for us in that great struggle, together 
with their families. The same great questions were 
again settled by the Congress of the United States 
at the close of the late war with Great Britain, and 
also in the Florida war. Negroes, as war-measures, 
were emancipated in both these wars. Claims for 
them were brought by their masters in both in- 
stances before Congress, and in both instances Con- 
gress decided that the emancipation of the slaves 
were legitimate war-measures, and that the owners 
were, therefore, not entitled to any compensation 
tliough their loyalty was unquestionable. 

France, as a war-measure, emancipated the slaves 



46 AUURESS. 

of San Domingo, and it was tlie attempt to re- 
enslave them, that led to the bloody massacre there. 
The right therefore of the government of the 
United States to emancipate the slaves of the states 
in rebellion, as a just and legitimate war measure, 
rests upon truths as obvious and well settled, as the 
right to repel and overthrow a public enemy. But 
there is another reason why the government had a 
right to strike down slavery. Slavery had been 
arrayed against the government as a public enemy, 
and menaced the very existence of the nation ; the 
nation therefore had a right to strike it down as a 
measure of public safety. But, again, the rebels 
made slavery the prize for which they fought, and 
having lost in the game of war, they are bound as 
honorable sportsmen to give it up. They appealed 
to the arbitrament of the sword, and the decision is 
against them. Well they have given it up. They 
have abolished slavery in all their new constitutions. 
They have been converted into abolitionists ! The 
hard arguments of northern abolitionists have con- 
verted them to their new gospel ! — and it is marvel- 
ous in our eyes ! It looks very much like the dawn 
of the millennium ; for nations, (or rather states) are 
born in a day ! I hope that these latter d;iy saints 
will fellowship their northern abolition brethren, and 
that we shall not have an abolition church north, 
and an abolition^*, church south, but that all may 
belong to one common communion ! 



ADDRESS. 47 

But it is farther objected: "If cliurcli members 
who have been engaged in the rebellion be dealt 
with by the churches, church members who have 
defended the life of the nation against these and 
other rebels, who attempted its destruction, must 
also be dealt with. 

This objection is raised not as a w^eapon of offense, 
to smite alike both rebel and Union soldiers, but as 
a shield, to protect rebels from church discipline. 
It may shelter them from the discipline of the church, 
but can not shelter them from the judgments which 
God has denounced against them. And if they 
follow these blind guides both must fall into the 
ditch. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." 
Though God has enjoined submission to the powers 
that be, and has denounced damnation against those 
who resist the power, because in so doing they resist 
also the ordinance of God, yet this objection levels 
all distinction between those who obey God and the 
powers that be, and those who resist all lawful au- 
thority, both Divine and human. Though God de- 
nounces damnation against those who resist the 
power, yet these objectors, like their prototype, tell 
them they shall not surely be damned. Will they 
listen to these false teachers, or will they give heed 
to the voice of God, and turn from the evil of their 
^vay — forsake and repudiate their sin — and live ? 

Is the man, who defends himself against the assassin, 
who attempts his life, as guilty as the assassin ? Is 



48 ADDRESS. 

the man who defends his mother against his brother, 
who attempts her life, as guilty as the matricide ? 
The patriot who defends the life of his nation 
against armed traitors, who attempt its destruction, 
as guilty as the traitors ? Was Peter, who smote 
oif the ear of the servant of the high priest in de- 
fense of his Divine Master, as guilty as Judas who 
delivered him up ? This is the doctrine taught by 
the defenders and apologists of traitors. They 
teach the way of death, and I fear me walk it too, 
from their approval of treason with all its bloody 
deeds, and the bitter and unchristian spirit which 
they manifest toward all Union persons. 

I have no space to argue the question, whether 
Christians may fight for their country or not ; but 
remark, in passing, that Jesus says to Pilate : " If 
my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
servants fight that I should not be delivered to the 
Jews." 

This language clearly recognizes the right and 
the duty of the subjects and citizens of the king- 
doms and governments of this world to fight for 
their king and government. No exception is made 
in favor of Christians ; it therefore follows that it is 
their right and duty to fight when their country 
demands their services; and especially when their 
heritage of freedom and the very existence of the 
government of their choice, are menaced by legions 
of armed traitors. 



ADDRESS. 49 

But again, the governments of this world are 
organisms ordained of God for the protection and 
security of human rights ; and are armed with the 
sword for the maintenance of their existence, the 
enforcement of their authority, and the protection 
and security of their rights. 

The violence and injustice which have rendered 
necessary the governments of this world, have made 
the sword an instrument essential to their existence, 
and to the accomplishment of the great ends for 
which God ordained them. And in an aggressive 
world like ours, if any nation could be guilty of the 
folly of dispensing with the sword, it would utterly 
ftiil of the great ends for which God ordained gov- 
ernments among men. It would soon fail to execute 
even civil process, the land would be filled with vio- 
lence, and the government without an arm to enforce 
its authority, or protect its existence, would be 
justly doomed to speedy and utter annihilation. 
As the sword then is essential to national existence, 
and to the great ends for which governments are 
instituted among men ; and to be resorted to when- 
ever necessary, even in the execution of civil pro- 
cess ; often in the execution of criminal process ; 
and when the rights of a nation are trespassed upon 
by another power, negotiations fail, and her terri- 
tory is, perhaps, invaded by hostile armies, a resort 
to arms becomes essential to national existence. 
The citizens must then fight or the nation perit^h. 
5 



50 ADDRESS. 

In the late bloody civil war through which we have 
passed, the loyal citizens had to light and overcome 
the armed hosts of the rebellioDj or suffer the nation 
to }3erish. 

Now whatever is essential for the citizens of the 
governments of this world to do, in order to main- 
tain their existence, or to accomplish the ends for 
which God ordained them, is right ; and whatever is 
right may be done by Christians ; it therefore follows 
that it is the right and the duty of Christians, to 
fight whenever the government calls upon them to 
do so, to enforce its authority or to protect, defend 
and maintain its just rights. 

But again ; may not the servants of God aid his 
public ministers Avho preside over national affairs in 
executing the high trust which God has committed 
to their hands ? and may they not fight to preserve 
the government which God has ordained for the 
security of human rights. John was to make ready 
a people prepared for the Lord. This preparation 
made them morally fit for the kingdom of the Mes- 
siah. Now, " The soldiers came to John and de- 
manded of him, saying, And what shall we do ? And 
he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither 
accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages." 
They were not to be guilty of any acts of personal 
violence toward each other or tow^ard any of the 
people, nor to accuse any falsely, as was too often 
done by soldiers for purposes of gain : and were to 



ADDKESS. 51 

be content with their wages. And if thej were to 
be content with their wages, they were required 
necessarily to discharge the duties of soldiers for 
which they received their wages. The important 
part of which duty was to fight when their country 
demanded it. Then, according to John, those who 
had all the moral fitness necessary to Christians 
might fight as soldiers. 

And Cornelius, one of the best men of his age, 
was a military Roman officer, commanding a hun- 
dred men. And when Peter baptized him, there is 
no intimation that he told him he must resign his 
commission, that he could no longer be a soldier. 
Wherefore we conclude that a Christian may be a 
soldier, and as such may fight for his country. 

But I am told that slavery is a Divine institution, 
that profane abolitionists meditated its overthrow, 
and that the pious Southerners fought to save this 
Divine institution from destruction by Northern 
infidels ! 

Did these pious devotees of slavery love it so well 
because they thought they saw the impress of Divin- 
ity upon it, and did they fight from a zeal for God, 
lest one of His institutions should be overthrown by 
the profane hands of abolitionists ? They doubtless 
believed in the law and the profits, but especially 
in the profits ! But that American slavery is Di- 
vine is not altogether clear to my mind ! I have 
read of wild Africans being torn away from their 



52 ADDRESS. 

native forests and sold into slavery in the American 
colonies, and afterward in the United States of Ame- 
rica; but that the authors of these proceedings 
claimed any Divine warrant for what they did, or 
wrought miracles, as did Moses, to prove that their 
mission was divine, I never learned ! But I am told 
that the divine charter for the proceeding is to be 
found in the ninth chapter of Genesis, and is in the 
words following, viz: "And he (Noah) said cursed 
be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto 
his brethren." 

It strikes me that this is rather a vague charter 
for the great system of American slavery. It is a 
somewhat obscure warrant to authorize the arrest of 
the wild African negro, his transportation to a dis- 
tant continent, and his sale there into perpetual 
slavery in the remote ages of the world ! I hardly 
think the proceeding divine or justified by the 
Oracle! There are several objections to making 
the Oracle available in this case. 1. It is not cer- 
tain that the curse had the divine sanction. 2. If it 
had, was it limited to Canaan, or was it intended to 
fall upon Canaan and descend upon his posterity in 
all time to come? 3. If the last, does it mean that 
Canaan and all his descendants should be slaves in- 
dividually and actually, or that they should be infe- 
rior to their brethren, and less honored than they, 
as in the case of Esau ? Or, 4. That they should 
be inferior and subordinate to their brethren in a 



ADDRESS. 53 

national point of view? If it meant that they were 
to be slaves individually and actually, the curse 
failed in the first ages after it was pronounced, and 
the right of their cousins to enslave them was lost 
by non user. For the Canaanites settled in Pales- 
tine, gave name to the country, and were there as 
an independent tribe or nation when the Israelites 
und-er Joshua entered. Many of them were cut off 
by the Israelites, some enslaved by them, and the 
others probably became incorporated v/ith the sur- 
rounding tribes and lost their existence as a sepa- 
rate tribe or nation. But that any of them were 
black or ever settled in Africa, history deposes not. 
All traces of them are lost at quite an early period 
of Jewish history. What a vast gap of time exists 
between the last historical vestiges of the Canaan- 
ites and the wild savage negro of modern Africa ! 
A hundred generations have gone down in the 
mighty chasm ! Who shall bridge this vast gulf in 
which so many nations and generations have disap- 
peared, and call up from the dread abyss the shades 
of departed witnesses along the line of the ages to 
testify that the negro on a South Carolina planta- 
tion is the veritable descendant of Canaan ? Every 
link in the chain of title and descent must be filled 
up, and the negro identified as the true lineal de- 
scendant of Canaan, or the title, jura divino, must 
fail. The claimant declares on this oracle, and the 
negro (waiving all objections arising from the ex- 



54 ADDRESS. 

treme improbability that a just God would doom a 
whole race to bondage through all time on account 
of a sin committed by the father of their first progeni- 
tor, and all other objections arising from presump- 
tions in favor of freedom), pleads that he is not a 
descendant of Canaan, and throws the onus prohandi 
upon the plaintiff. 

The genius of justice is called to the judicial 
bench to decide this litigated case. He calls upon 
the plaintiff to proceed with his proof. His counsel 
reads the oracle from Genesis ; and then reads from 
some old historical work, that some of the descend- 
ants of Ham settled in Africa. The judge informs 
him that there are no presumptions in favor of 
slavery, and that it is not necessary to put a con- 
struction on Gen. ix, 25, until he proves that the 
negro, whom he claims as his slave, jure divino^ is 
the true lineal descendant of Canaan ; that if he 
could prove even that some of the descendants of 
Canaan settled in Africa, it could create no pre- 
sumption against the negro, that the proof must be 
clear and conclusive ; if one link in the chain of title 
and of lineage was wanting, the title could not be 
sustained ! Under this ruling of the court, the 
counsel for the plaintiff, seeing that he could not 
establish any divine right to the negro, asked leave 
of the court to amend his pleadings. 

He then declared on the maxim that might gives 
right ! — confessing that American slavery Avas made 



ADDRESS. 



55 



by the American people themselves, and that it 
originated in cupidity. He also pleaded the usage 
of ages in its behalf. 

To this declaration the negro pleads his right to 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; and that 
wrong might be aggravated by persistence, but never 
could be made right by usage, — appealing to God 
and his country. 

The American people have brought in their ver- 
dict, which is in the words following, viz : " We the 
jury find for the defendant.^' It is therefore or- 
dered and adjudged that the negro henceforth and 
for ever go free. This long litigated case is there- 
fore forever set at rest by the supreme tribunal of 
the American people. 

But an apology for treason in a form somewhat 
new, comes from a son of South Carolina. He says : 
"And what great crime have the secessionists 
themselves been guilty of? They believed in that 
sacred principle set forth in our Declaration of In- 
dependence, that every people have the right of 
self-government, and the right to change and alter 
their form of government as they may see proper. 
This was the head and front of their offending — 
nothing more. They expressed their purpose of 
living separate from the northern States — that was 
all. They did not seek to invade the north or gov- 
ern the north. It was not their purpose to wage 
war against the northern States ; but to live quietly 



5G ADDRESS. 

and peaceably by them as neighbors and friends. 
They had been taught by their greatest statesmen 
for half a century past, that they had the right to 
peaceably secede from the Federal Government; 
and they attempted to exercise this right. That is 
all. For this attempt they have been conquered 
and subdued, their property taken from them, and 
their country desolated." 

This is about as cool audacity and mendacity as 
mortals usually exhibit. Is this the language of 
Bedlam or Pandemonium ? Comes it from one be- 
reft of reason or of conscience? "They believed 
in that sacred principle set forth in our Doclaration 
of Independence, that every people have the right 
of self-government, and the right to change and 
alter their form of government as they may see 
proper." Does this apologist for treason deceive 
himself, or would he deceive others by his fallacies ? 
In what sense does he use the term " every people ?" 
Does he mean by this slipshod use of the term, that 
the people of a neighborhood have the right to 
secede from the county of which they form a com- 
ponent part, and erect for themselves an independent 
government? or that the people of a county have 
the right to secede from the state to which they be- 
long, and organize for themselves a separate and 
independent government? or that the people of a 
state, or of several states of these United States, 
have the right, ad lihiUmi, peaceably to secede from 



ADDRESS. 57 

the union of these states, and to organize themselves 
into a separate and independent nation or confeder- 
acy ? Or that any faction or fraction of a nation 
may do this ? If any of all these is his meaning, 
then no man that is not a fit subject for a lunatic 
asylum can believe it. The doctrine is subversive 
of all governments among men — makes all written 
constitutions and laws mere waste paper — re- 
duces their most solemn provisions and enact- 
ments to mere counsel or advice, without any power 
to enforce submission to their injunctions, because 
those under one jurisdiction to-day, may, to-morrow, 
by the exercise of this " right of every people to 
self-goverument," be under a foreign and wholly 
different jurisdiction. What does it avail to secede 
and form a new government to-day, for to-morrow 
it may be dissolved and broken into fragments ? 
This doctrine would reduce all governments to the 
mere ephemera of an hour — would make them as 
changeable as the drifting sands of the Arabian 
desert. Rebels themselves, though they have the 
audacity still to preach this doctrine, do not believe 
it; for in time of the rebellion, when there were 
some threats that North Carolina would secede from 
the bogus rebel confederacy, the secessionists them- 
selves threatened most fiercely to coerce her into 
submission, if she made any such attempt. 

If the leaders of the rebellion believed that they 
had a just right peaceably to secede from the 



58 ADDRESS. 

"Federal Government," and form a separate and in- 
dependent confederacy, why did they not take a 
straightforward, honest course to lead the people 
into the movement? Why did they resort to lies 
the most astounding that ever saluted mortal ears, 
and that must have sounded strangely audacious 
even to the ears of the father of lies himself? And 
when every species of fraud and falsehood failed of 
seducing many into the rebellion, w^hy was the hal- 
ter so freely resorted to to silence the opposition of 
numbers to the movement by stopping their breath, 
and for the farther purpose of creating a reign of 
terror in order to drive and stampede others into 
the diabolical enterprise ? These are the proceed- 
ings of incendiary outlaws in order to accomplish 
some infernal purpose, and not the proceedings of 
honest men who are only seeking their just rights. 
If they believed that " every people had the 
/ right," etc., taking the term in the limited sense of 
the people of the cotton or Southern states, why 
did they not submit their secession ordinances to 
the decision of the people of those states respec- 
tively through the ballot-box? And when guilty of 
the sham and falsehood of a pretended submission 
of the secession ordinance of Tennessee to the vote 
of the people of Tennessee, why did they declare, 
" if any man appeared upon the stump to advocate 
the Union cause, they would shoot him down." 
The friends of the Union knew that these violent 



ADDRESS. 59 

men meant what they said, and though many of 
them were prepared to die if necessary to save the 
Union, yet they thought it folly to throw their lives 
away, and therefore they did not appear upon the 
stump in advocacy of the cause of the Union, save 
in East Tennessee, where the Union sentiment was 
largely in the ascendancy ! And why did they pub- 
lish in their papers in Tennessee pending the elec- 
tion, " Mark every man that votes for the Union, and 
have a cotton rope prepared for himf^ Wliy all 
this ? It was because the leaders feared " the p)eo- 
ple,^^ in whose name they pretended to act, lest if 
permitted to vote and to vote freely, notwithstand- 
ing all the foul means by which they had sought to 
mislead them, they would vote down and annul all 
their secession proceedings. 

" They believed every people had the right," etc. 
"This was the head and front of their oflfendino-; 
nothing more." " They expressed their purpose of 
living separate from the Northern states ;" " that was 
all." " They did not seek to invade the North," etc., 
" but to live quietly and peaceably by them as 
neighbors and friends," etc. And was this all ? 
Had their declarations that " their rights must be 
baptized in blood or they would be worth nothing," 
no meaning? Had their declarations that "blood 
must be drawn to fire the Southern heart or the 
whole enterprise would fail, no significancy? If 
they wished to live in peace with the people of the 



60 ADDRESS. 

loyal states, why did tliey raise large armies — assail 
and take Fort Sumter — while as yet the government 
at Washington had made no preparation for war ! 
And when Fort Sumter fell, why did their secretary 
of war boast that by the first of May their flag- 
would be flying over the dome of the capital in 
Washington City, and that they would dictate terms 
of peace in Faneuil Hall in Boston ? Why had they 
seized on our forts, and arsenals, and custom- 
houses, etc., and our mint at New Orleans ? Why 
did they with a large army menace Washington 
City? And when Kentucky refused to join her for- 
tunes to the rotten, bogus concern, why did they 
declare that " they must have Kentucky though at 
the price of blood and conquest — that they could 
not do without her territory?" Was all this 
nothing ? Did all this simply mean peace ? aind 
have these secessionists been conquered and sub- 
dued, their property taken, and their country deso- 
lated, simply on account of their political faith? 
No ! it was for their diabolical attempt to overthrow 
the government of the United States and to dis- 
member the republic by force of arms, that they 
have been conquered and subdued. And never, 
since time began, have rebels so guilty been treated 
with so much mercy. And what return do they 
make for the surpassing mercy that has been shown 
them both by the loyal people and government of 
the United States ? Why, wdierever they have the 



ADDRESS. 61 

power, they ostracize and proscribe all loyal men 
both in church and state, and fill the pulpits and civil 
offices either with rebel sympathizers or with unre- 
pentant rebels — men who have many regrets because 
they failed to overthrow the government and dis- 
meinber the republic — but none for their treason? 
This is too sadly true in my own native and loved 
Kentucky. With these misguided men Christianity 
is only a name, an empty sound; neither the autho- 
rity of God or man seems to possess the power to 
bind their consciences ! It looks as if some vast 
demoniacal possession was dragging them down to 
perdition! Who shall exorcise this spirit of evil 
whose name is legion ? And yet these men think 
it very hard and altogether unconstitutional that 
they should suffer any disability on account of dis- 
loyalty both to the government of God and of the 
United States, and for all the woes they have 
brought upon the country. Woe both to the coun- 
try and church where such men bear rule ! 

But to return ; every people, when the term is 
used in its true meaning and comprehension, as 
comprising a nation ought to have the right of self- 
government and the right to change and alter their 
form of government whenever the nation, the sole 
and legitimate judge in the premises, shall in its 
aggregate capacity think proper to do so, after due 
deliberation. But the people of a great nation like 
the people of the United States, with a written con- 



62 ADDRESS. 

stitution, to which all the people of all the states 
are parties, are bound by the provisions of the con- 
stitution while it remains unchanged. And if the 
constitution like that of the United States contains 
provisions for its alteration or amendment, alter- 
ations or amendments can only be made by the 'people 
— in manner and form as prescribed in the consti- 
tution. To this manner, and to this manner alone, 
the people and the whole people are bound and lim- 
ited by their solemn compact, to which every citizen 
is a party, and which every one is bound by more 
than the solemnities of an ordinary oath faithfully 
and religiously to observe. 

But this apologist for traitors appeals to " the 
Declaration of our Independence." To that Dec- 
laration then let us go. The one people there 
spoken of were the people of the thirteen united 
colonies. And it was in the name and by the au- 
thority of the good people of these colonies, that 
their representatives in Congress assembled, de- 
clared their independence, and for the reasons and 
purposes stated in said Declaration. 

That Declaration, penned by Thomas Jefferson, 
called the father of Democracy, declares "that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness ; that to secure these rights governments 
are instituted among men." It was because the 



ADDRESS. 63 

British government had become destructive of these 
great ends, and with a view of securing them by 
instituting a new form of government, that the good 
people of the colonies, after many long years of 
oppression, declared their independence. 

This is a reason and purpose somewhat different 
from the reason and the purpose, which impelled 
the Scruth to attempt to separate themselves from 
the Union. Their avowed purpose was to institute 
a new form of government, whose chief corner stone 
should not be freedom, but slavery, with a view of 
perpetuating the bondage of four millions of human 
beings and their posterity, in all time to come, lest, 
peradventure, if they remained in the Union, the 
government of the United States might in some 
remote and possible contingency, overthrow slavery, 
though such purpose was positively disavowed. 

Thomas Jefferson the author of the Declaration 
of Independence, in declaring that all men are cre- 
ated equal, etc., meant what he said and said what 
he meant; — for though under the circumstances 
himself a slave-holder, yet in principle he w^as 
strongly anti-slavery : — and in the draft of the Dec- 
laration which he presented to Congress, one of the 
grievances of the colonies complained of, was the 
introduction and perpetuation of slavery in said 
colonies by the mother country. This item was 
struck out by the pro-slavery party in Congress. 
The reference therefore to our Declaration of lude- 



64 ADDRESS. 

pendence as authority for the slaveholders' rebellion 
to perpetuate slavery, is most unfortunate. Mr. 
Jefferson afterward speaking of the wrongs of 
slavery, remarked : '' When I remember that God is 
just, I tremble for my country." Where is the man 
with a heart in his bosom that does not rejoice that 
these children of unrequited toil are free ? And as 
their unpaid toil has contributed so largely to our 
national wealth, who does not feel like lending them 
a helping hand to elevate them in the scale of being ? 
And do not their Avonderful powers of imitation, 
which enable them not only to adopt the customs of 
the white man, but his color also, prove their capa- 
bility of rising in the world, and attest their claims 
to freedom ! 

But the stereotyped objection, that has been 
iterated and reiterated a thousand times, is still 
urged : " Oh, the rebels have suffered enough ; why 
should they be stricken any more?" How much 
more have they suffered than the loyal people? 
Have any more of them fallen in battle, died of 
wounds, or died of disease contracted in the army ? 
Not a great many more, I apprehend. In these re- 
spects, the sufferings are probably nearly equal. But 
Avhen we take into consideration the dreadful suffer- 
ings of our soldiers in the prison-pens of the South, 
exposed on open grounds, alike in sunshine and 
storm — winter, spring, summer and autumn — with- 
out tents, without blankets, without overcoats (for 



ADDRESS. 65 

these, if thej had any, had been taken from them by 
the rebels), and generally with very scanty ordinary 
wearing apparel, without suitable water to drink, 
and with less than half rations, and these generally 
of an inferior quality — and when food and clothing 
were sent them by our government, even these god- 
sends were, by the keepers of these abodes of death, 
denied to these prisoners, sinking, daily sinking, by 
slow torture from starvation and exposure to all 
weathers, until the tardy messenger of death came 
at last to release them from their dreadful sufferings! 
The history of the most salvage tribes of men fur- 
nishes no instances of equal cruelty to prisoners, 
not even that of the Thugs of India, the Bushmen of 
Africa, or that of the savages of the Fejee Islands. 
They have tortured their prisoners, but no instances 
of such protracted and cruel torture of prisoners of 
war was ever known before. Mind and body often 
sunk together, until the mind was blotted out, and 
the skeleton form reduced to utter helplessness, 
when death came at last to the relief of the wretched 
victim of this more than savage barbarity. And in 
one instance at least, in the prison-pen at Ander- 
sonville, in Georgia, when these skeleton forms were 
called up right on the verge of the dead-line, to get 
some thing to eat, the poor fellows hobbled up to 
partake of the scanty meal, three or four accident- 
ally passed the dead-line, and were all instantly run 
through with a bayonet, by one of the keepers, and 
6 



66 ADDRESS. 

cruellv murdered. When the terrible sufferinors of 
these persons, ^yhora the fortunes of war placed in 
the hands of the enemy, and who were thus mur- 
dered, by slow torture, from exposure and starva- 
tion, to the number of more than sixty thousand, 
are taken into consideration, the actual sufferings 
of the rebels bear no proportion to those of the 
loyal people. And as for the loss of property, apart 
from the negro, the difference is not worthy of any 
contention. And as to that loss, it will ultimately 
be found by the South, as well as the North, to be 
great gain. 

AYhat sense, then, is there in the objection, '* Oh, 
the rebels have suffered enough ?'' There is not one 
particle of sense or reason in it. "A fellow feeling" 
makes those w^ho preach this doctrine "wondrous 
kind." But have they been reformed by the suffer- 
ings they have brought upon themselves and the 
country at large? What indemnity have we for the 
past, and what security that they will keep the peace 
in future? If they are not reformed by their suffer- 
ings — not purified of treason by the fiery ordeal 
through which they have passed, why should the 
objection be eternally rung in our ears, even by 
those who wish to be thought loyal, " Oh, they have 
suffered enough ?" 

God pardons not sinners, except upon repentance, 
and it were well if political rulers would profit by 
Divine wisdom. The proclamation has gone forth 



ADDRESS. 67 

from the Throne of God to the ends of the earth, to 
sinners of every shade and of every dye, '' Except 
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." They must 
forsake their sins, and be prepared, as fast as possi- 
ble, to make amends for the wrongs they have done, 
before they can obtain pardon from the merciful and 
all-wise Ruler of the Universe. Any other course 
would overthrow the Divine government; and any 
other course toward rebels and other oifenders must 
impair the authority of our State and national gov- 
ernment, and endanger the safety of both — espe- 
cially to restore to rebels the right of suffrage and 
of holding ofiice, while they are yet reeking with 
treason, and with their blood-red hands unwashid by CL^ 
a single penitential tear. To pardon such persons, 
and restore to them the ballot, w^hile their hearts are 
all festering with the leprosy of treason, bodes evil, 
and only evil, to our country. It is to enable them 
to accomplish by the ballot what they have failed to 
accomplish by the bayonet — namely, the ruin of our 
country. Would you put a fire-brand into the hand 
of an incendiary that he may set your house on fire ? 
Would you replace the dagger in the hand of the 
midnight assassin, who had just attempted your life, 
and whom, with great difiiculty, you had overpow- 
ered and disarmed? And will you replace either the 
ballot or the bayonet in the hands of the assassins 
who have attempted the life of the nation ? Will 
you again intrust the fortunes of the ship of state, 



08 ADDRESS. 

the noblest craft that ever plowed the ocean of time, 
to those desperate men who mutinied, attempted to 
overpower the crcAV — to scuttle and sink the noble 
ship in mid ocean, with her crew and precious freight, 
with the vain hope that they themselves could es- 
cape the general wreck and ruin on a miserable 
raft ? He who could give or take such advice is a 
monster or a maniac. 

But, alas ! the remark of the great Pettigru, of 
South Carolina, might w^ith too much truth be ap- 
plied to other states than that. A gentleman, visit- 
ing Charleston, asked him the way to the lunatic 
asylum ; he replied, " Go any way you please, you 
can't miss it in South Carolina !" As these despe- 
rate men are hasting to obtain pardon, let them 
make haste to give evidence of thorough repentance 
and reformation of life ; and when they are purified 
from the leprosy of treason, and make amends for 
their crimes as far as possible, then, and then only, 
can they be safely pardoned and restored to the 
privilege of ballot and of office. 

And how can the church forgive them until they 
shall have forsaken and repudiated their sin and 
done works meet for repentance ! Till then, for the 
church to pardon them or wink at the great sins 
they have committed, could only tend to lull theui 
into false security, and to seal their everlasting over- 
throw. For every Bible reader, not morally de- 
mented by treason, knows that damnation is Avritteii 



ADDRESS. 69 

down against these men by the hand of inspiration, 
and that without repentance God can never pardon 
them. And why shouhl the government pardon 
them and restore them to their rights? For if any 
opportunity should ever occur to overthrow the 
government by the sword or by the ballot, Avhile 
treason yet rankles in their bosoms, they will strike 
for its destruction. It will happen to them accord- 
ing to the true proverb — " The dog is turned to his 
own vomit again, and the sow that was washed, to 
her wallowing in the mire." 

When they come back, like the prodigal son, with 
repentance in their hearts and the language of deep 
contrition upon their lips, " Father, I have sinned 
against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more 
worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy 
hired servants;" when they come thus penitent and 
self-abased, then, and not till then, will God pardon 
them ; and then, and only then, can they be safely 
restored to their privileges either in church or 
state. 

The prodigal son and Zaccheus are genuine cases 
of repentance. " Half my goods," said the penitent 
Zaccheus, ' will I give to the poor, and if I have 
defrauded any one by unjust accusation, I Avill 
restore fourfold." When the rebels shall give half 
their goods to the families that have been impover- 
ished by the war they have waged against the 
country, and shall restore fourfold to those they 



70 ADDRESS. 

have injured, tlien God -will pardon tliem, and both 
church and state may then forgive them, and restore 
them to their former privileges; but until they are 
sorry enough for the past, to make amends for the 
wrongs they have done, it were better both for 
church and state, to keep them on probation. 

But it is farther objected, " that these breth- 
ren and their confederates in arms, are not guilty 
of treason, thouo;h the latter waged war acTainst the 
United States, and the former both asjainst the 
United States and their respective states ; because 
they fought in vindication of the state rights of the 
South, rights that had been left unsettled by the 
Constitution of the United States." 

'' These men not guilty of treason !" Then the 
framers of the Constitution of the United States, 
and all law writers and legislators of ancient and 
modern times, have mistaken the nature of treason. 
The Constitution of the United States defines trea- 
son against the United States, to consist in " levying 
war against them, or adhering to their enemies — 
giving them aid and comfort " — the very crime that 
these men have committed, as the tread of ndghty 
armies, and the dreadful shock of battle, that have 
shaken the continent, and devastated the country 
too sadly attest. 

But " it was the states' rights of the South for 
which these men fought, rights that had been left 
unsettled by the Constitution of the United States." 



ADDRESS. 71 

What rio'lits of the Southern states had been as- 
sailed, or invaded ? Had not the general govern- 
ment most carefully guarded ever}^ right of the 
Southern states. And did not the Republican Con- 
gress of 1860 and 1861, both Senate and House of 
Representatives, pass, almost unanimously, an act 
intended to be incorporated into the Constitution of 
the United States — providing that slavery in the 
states should never be interfered with by the govern- 
ment of the United States, without the consent of 
all the states, and which nothing but secession, per- 
sisted in, prevented from being incorporated into 
the Constitution of the United Stp.tes, and becoming 
a part and parcel of that instrument ? And that 
very Congress passed several acts — organizing new 
territories, in all of Avhich provisions were made 
that the territorial legislatures should pass no laws 
interfering with the domestic institutions of the 
territories, — looking directly to the protection of 
slavery, in the territories — another concession, as a 
peace offering to the South, to quiet the very sen- 
sitive slave interest. And Yancey and Mason pro- 
claimed to France and England, that the government 
of the United States was pro-slavery, and that they 
could obtain for slavery any guarantee they might 
demand. And Alexander Stephens told the South 
that though in the minority, they had always had a 
majority of the offices of the United States — exec- 
utive, cabinet, judicial, consular, diplomatic, etc. — 



72 ADDRESS. 

that they had always controlled the government, 
and could continue to do it ; and that there was no 
just cause for the rebellion — if they seceded and 
involved the country in war, a proclamation of 
emancipation would probably come, slavery would 
be overthrown, and the whole South would be devas- 
tated by hostile armies ; and that for the ruin they 
would bring upon their country the names of those 
engaged in it would be execrated to the latest ages. 
" The state rights of the South ! " The right, as 
they claimed, to secede and resume their separate 
and independent sovereignty ? Resume their sepa- 
rate and independent sovereignty ! This right, only 
existed in nuhihus^ in the clouds, for certainly, it 
never had any existence on earth, nor could it pos- 
sibly have ; for the very good and valid reason, that 
these states had never enjoyed any separate and 
independent sovereignty ; and therefore, could not 
resume that, which they had never assuyned. The 
thirteen colonies were colonial dependents of Great 
Britain, until they united to secure their indepen- 
dence of the mother countr3^ It was as United 
States, they declared their independence — as United 
States they fought together the battles of the Revo- 
lution, and gained their independence. And it was 
only in Union that they could have succeeded in 
securing their independence. Louisiana was subject 
to France, until she was acquired by treaty, and 
became a territory of the United States ; and Flor- 



ADDRESS. 73 

ick was subject to Spain, until she, too, was acquired 
by treaty, and passed under the jurisdiction of the 
United States ; and the others were territories, 
under the pupilage of the government of the United 
States, until admitted into the Union as states. 
Texas is the only state in the Union that ever enjoyed 
a separate and independent sovereignty ; and that 
was surrendered by her for ever, when she joined 
the great sisterhood of the United States. But 
even if these states had enjoyed separate and inde- 
pendent sovereignties, they were merged and lost 
in the Union upon the adoption of the Constitution 
of the United States. For the language of the 
Constitution is: "We the people of the United 
States, in order to form a more perfect union ; es- 
tablish justice ; insure domestic tranquillity ; provide 
for the common defense; promote the general wel- 
fare; and secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution, for the United States of America." 
How could language more clearly declare a national 
government, in contradistinction to a league, or 
federation of states ? The inherent and incurable 
vices of all confederacies of states, where the ordi- 
nances of the federal government operate upon 
states as such, instead of upon individuals, had 
become sufficiently manifest under the old articles 
of the confederation ; and therefore the people, the 
source and fountain of all political power, formed a 
7 



74 ADDRESS. 

national government, by making and adopting a 
national Constitution, under which the laws of the 
United States operate upon individuals, and are en- 
forced by the arm of the civil magistrate, except in 
~fcase of insurrection or rebellion. 

Under the old Articles of Confederation, the laws 
or ordinances of the United States operated upon 
states in their organized capacity, instead of on indi- 
viduals, and it was in reference to that state of things, 
under the old Confederacy, that Mr. Madison re- 
marked that the federal government had no power to 
coerce a state (or a sovereign state). Buchanan, in his 
message of December, 1860, quotes this remark of Mr. 
Madison in reference to the powers of the old de- 
funct Confederacy, and misapplies it to the powers 
of the government of the United States under the. 
present Constitution. Mr. Jefferson was at issue 
with Mr. Madison on this (piestion. He argued 
that the government of the United States, under 
that order of things, had the power or authority to 
coerce a state; that the power or authority existed 
from the very necessity of the case, otherwise the 
laws or ordinances of the federal government would 
be mere counsel or advice. These great statesmen 
diff*ered on that question ; but as to the power or 
authority of the government of the United States, 
under the present Constitution, to coerce a state, 
or the people of a state, that may resist the author- 
ity of the government, the power or authority to do 



ADDRESS. 75 

SO lias never been called in question until very re- 
cently, and that by rebels (and their sympathizers) 
to shield them from the just penalty of the law, and 
from that infamy to which their guilt justly consigns 
them. 

The government of the United States is, by the 
present Constitution, clothed with all the great and 
essential attributes of sovereignty : " The power to 
borrow money on the credit of the United States ; 
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and 
among the several states, and with the Indian 
tribes; To establish a uniform, rule of naturaliza- 
tion ; and uniform laws on the subject of bankrupt- 
cies throughout the United States ; To coin money, 
regulate the value thereoT, and of foreign coin, and 
fix the standard of weights and measures ; To pro- 
vide for the punishment of counterfeiting the secu- 
rities and current coin of the United States ; To 
establish post offices and post roads ; To define and 
punish piracies and felonies committed on the high 
seas, and offenses against the law of nations ; To 
declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, 
and make rules concerning captures on land and 
water ; To raise and support armies : To provide 
and maintain a navy ; To make rules for the gov- 
ernment and regulation of the land and naval forces ; 
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute 
the laws of the Union, to suppress insurrections, 
and repel invasions;" To make treaties with other 



76 ADDRESS. 

nations : with all the other great and essential pow- 
ers pertaining to national sovereignty. Now, the 
granting of these powers to the national govern- 
ment, by the people of the United States, denies 
them to the states by necessary implication, both 
because they had passed out of the hands of the 
people, and had been vested in the national govern- 
ment, and because of the confusion arid conflict of 
jurisdiction to which any, other vie^Y^%ould neces- 
sarily lead. Yet the framers of the. Constitution 
did not stop here; but expressly denied almost 
every attribute of sovereignty to the states. 

The Constitution declares : " No state shall enter 
into any treaty, alliance or confederation ; grant let- 
ters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ; emit bills 
of credit ; make any thing but gold and silver a ten- 
der in payment of debts ; pass any bill of attainder, 
ex fost facto law, or law impairing the obligation of 
contracts ; or grant any title of nobility. No state 
shall, without the consent of- Congress, lay any im- 
posts or duties on imports or exports, except what 
may be absolutely necessary for executing its in- 
spection laws ; and the net produce of all duties and 
imposts laid by any state on imports or exports, 
shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United 
States; and all such laws shall be subject to re- 
vision and control of the Congress. No state sliall, 
without the consent 'of Congress, lay any duty on 
tonnage; keep troops or ships of war in time of 



ADDRESS. 77 

peace ; enter into any agreement or compact with 
another state, or with a foreign power ; or engage 
in war unless actually invaded, or in such imminent 
danger as will not admit of delay." (The whole 
secession movement of the Southern states was in 
direct violation of these prohibitions, as well as of 
the positive powers with which the United States 
are clothed.) 

Thus the states, not only by necessary implica- 
tion, but by express prohibitions in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, are denied all the great 
attributes of sovereignty ; while the United States 
are not only expressly clothed w^ith all the attributes 
of sovereignty, but to silence, if possible, all cavil, 
the Constitution of the United States declares that 
" this Constitution and the laws of the United States 
that shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all 
treaties made, or which shall be made, under the 
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme 
law of the land, and all the judges in every state 
shall be bound thereby — any thing in the constitu- 
tion or law of any state to the contrary notwith- 
standing " — thus leaving to the states only a quad 
and limited sovereignty, under the authority of the 
United States, which is supreme over all. And it 
is of the very nature of supremacy to control all 
within the sphere of its operations. 

Where, then, is the right of a state to secede from 
the United yStates ? It is given to the winds. And 



y8 address. 

where is the paramount allegiance due to the states, 
contended for by Southern politicians, with all other 
pestilent state-right heresies ? " Gone to the tomb, 
where all the kindred of the Capulets lie." 

Pending the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States, in the State of New York, there were 
those in the convention there Avho wished to adopt 
it conditionally. Alexander Hamilton wrote Mr. 
Madison, called the father of the Constitution, for 
his opinion upon the subject. Mr. Madison replied : 
""The adoption must he in toio and forever f^ that "a 
conditional adoption would be worse than no adop- 
tion at all." 

The Union of the United States is, therefore, no 
"free-love affair," but is a Union in toto and forever. 
How could the framers of the Constitution, and the 
great fathers of the Republic have more carefully 
guarded the country against the state-right heresies 
which have so long disturbed the public peace ? 

But, notwithstanding these plain constitutional 
provisions and the wise counsels of our fathers, the 
dragon-toothed heresies of paramount allegiance 
being due to the states, and the constitutional rights 
of the states to secede ad libitum from the Union, 
were by unscrupulous politicians sown broadcast 
over the South, from which sprung multitudes of 
armed- men, not only ready to do battle for secession, 
but to strike* down the government of our fathers. 



ADDRESS. 79 

Most of tlie cotton states were precipitated into 
secession, the mint of the United States at New 
Orleans, and most of the forts and arsenals in the 
seceding states were seized. The whole mad scheme 
had been worked up by strangely false and exagge- 
rated appeals to the passions and prejudices of the 
people ; and secession precipitated in order to com- 
mit them to the diabolical enterprise without giving 
them time for calm, sober reflection, and when ap- 
peals to passion and prejudice failed, the halter and 
the opprobrious epithets of abolitionist, submission- 
ist, and Lincolnite were applied without stint to 
compel recusants into submission and to silence all 
opposition. I know what I affirm, for I was in the 
midst of it. 

But some of the cotton states and the border 
states, though shaken, refused to embark their for- 
tunes on board the new and suspicious- looking craft 
that had appeared in Southern waters, lest it should be 
carried down by the storm that seemed to be gather- 
inor. There seemed to be a lull in the storm and 
danger that a sober second thought of the people 
would reverse all these proceedings. Some thing 
must be done to fire the Southern heart, carry the 
border and other cotton states, and alarm and in- 
timidate the North, and compel them to acquiesce in 
tlie demands of the South. It was proclaimed that 
blood must be drawn, that the rights of the South 



80 ADDRESS. 

must be baptized in blood, to fire the Southern 
heart and carry all the Southern states into the 
great secession movement. 

Means had long been in process for this purpose, 
and on the 12th of April, 1861, a vast armament at 
Charleston attacked a small, starvins^ garrison of 
seventy men in Fort Sumter, commanded by the im- 
mortal Major (now General) Anderson. Gallant 
was the defense made by that little band of immor- 
tal heroes against overwhelming odds ; but, with the 
fort in ruins and all on fire, they were compelled to 
lower the flag of their country to rebels ; but, in con- 
sideration of their gallantry, they were permitted to 
bear away with them that flag and their arms. The 
garrison surrendered the 14th day of April — the in- 
telligence was borne on the wires to Montgomery, 
Alabama, the then seat of government of the so- 
called Southern Confederacy. JetF. Davis was in- 
disposed, and Walker, the Secretary of War, from the 
gallery of the State House, in a short speech, con- 
gratulated his hearers on the success of the South, 
and told them that before the first of May the Con- 
federate flag would be flj'ing over the dome of the 
Capitol in Washington, and that they would dictate 
terms of peace in Faneuil Hall in Boston. 

One of the ends intended to be gained by this 
blow is partially accomplished. The Southern mael- 
strom, that had ingulfed so many states, is again 



ADDRESS. 81 

stirred with a strange and unearthly power. Vir- 
ginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas are lifted from their 
moorings by a vast wave of the roaring, raging 
whirlpool, and, borne away on the bosom of the re- 
fluent tide, are hurled headlong into the dreadful 
vortex of the rebellion. The old North State yet 
lingers, but slowly and fatally drifts until it too is 
ingulfed. The waves break with terrific fury over 
Maryland and Kentucky — many of their respective 
crews are swept overboard and ingulfed, but the 
brave old barks remain fast to their moorings. The 
wild, roaring waves and the howling tempest break 
with yet greater fary over Missouri. The pilot and 
many of the crew are swept overboard and hurled 
into the vortex of the rebellion ; and when a vast 
wave of the dreadful Avhirlpool, and a heavy gust of the 
roaring tempest would strike the sides of the gallant 
old bark, and sweep with violence over her deck, 
startino: her bolts and makiufii; all her bulwarks 
creak, the crew would look with blank dismay into 
each other's countenances, and sometimes the cry 
would go round, "She is drifting! we are ingulfed!" 
but when a pause in the violence of the rushing 
waves and of the dark, raging tempest gave oppor- 
tunity for observation, the brave old ship, though 
shattered and tossed, was seen to be still fast to her 
moorings. 

The storm had been long gathering. The first 



82 ADDRESS. 

bolt had fallen. Stars that till then had continued 
to shine in our political canopy, are suddenly dark- 
ened b}^ the yet gathering and increasing clouds of 
war that now darken the whole horizon of the South, 
and madly roll and toss in the Southern heavens. 
And as they roll their dark and threatening volumes 
toward the North, darker and yet more dark they 
grow — portending such a tempest as the world has 
rarely witnessed, and the like of which I hope 
America may never be doomed to witness again. 
It was not until the red, crashing thunder-bolts of 
war were rending the heavens that the lion of the 
North was roused from his lair. Terrible was the 
danger, and terrible was the power of the loyal peo- 
ple of the loyal states, and terrible their firm and 
resolute resolve to strike for God and their country. 
Men and money and lives were given without stint 
to save the country from disruption, and to preserve 
the priceless heritage of American freedom. The 
result is before the world. 

I have done; and if, in the discussion of these 
questions, I have seemed to go beyond the province 
of the minister of the sanctuary into foreign terri- 
tory, it was because those whose cases I have been 
considering had fled there for refuge, and I had to 
pursue them to their fastnesses, to show that the de- 
fenses behind which they have entrenched them- 
selves are wholly untenable. 



ADDRESS. 83 

Thus have I endeavored, my Christian brethren, 
to Lay before you what I conceive to be your ob- 
vious duty in the crisis that is upon you. The case 
is with you. Discharge your duty to God, to those 
Avhose cases I have been considering, to yourselves, 
to the church and your country, as you shall answer 
to God. 






LIBKHKY Oh CONliRtiib 



013 789 942 5 



